RECIPE: Yummy Scrambled Eggs

Hi chums!

I thought I'd share with you my recipe for scrambled eggs as I've been eating them a lot recently (as they're a soft food and I'm doing a liquid diet)

(Yup, I'm rubbish at cracking eggs!)

Ingredients:

3 Eggs

Salt

Pepper

tsp Butter

Dash of milk

Garlic salt

You can obviously put whatever you want in it regarding flavourings but I really like mine with seasoning in it from salt and pepper and sometimes garlic salt or mixed herbs, just to make them a bit more exciting!

Firstly I beat the eggs and add the rest of the ingredients. I then put them in the microwave for about 40 seconds and take the bowl out and mash the mixture with a fork ensuring the butter is melted. I then put the mixture back in for about a minute and then mash it all up again.

And there you have it!

Hope you like my recipe, as simple as it is you can add anything to it pretty much!

Abi :)

RECIPE: Pea and Ham Soup

As you know I am currently on a liquid diet and as part of that I've been having a lot of soup and thought it would be fun to make my own!

One of my favourite soups is pea and ham so I thought this would be the best one to make and probably one of the easiest!

 

 

 

Ingredients:

Olive oil

500g Frozen peas

Stock cube (in 500ml water)

1/2 Onion chopped

Ham (as much as you want)

 

Firstly I put the oil in a saucepan over a medium/high heat, and then added the onions. After this I put the peas and ham in and stirred, making sure nothing was sticking to the bottom of my pan! Once all of the peas were defrosted and soft I added the stock and left it simmering for about 15 minutes. After this I blitzed it all up using a hand blender typed thing (haha!). And that's it!

 

 

You can obviously add extra ingredients and flavourings like salt and pepper or mint but I liked my soup just as it was!

Abi :)

Making Pizza!

Hi chums!

I'm trying to get more hands on in the kitchen as I've never really been someone who makes their own meals from scratch or anything too fancy!

So phase one was me buying some pizza bases and adding my own toppings!

I used tomato puree, cheese, olives, parma ham and salami on my pizza.

Do you make your dinners?

Abi :)

RECIPE: Easter Cake

I have wanted to make an Easter cake for many years and this year was the year I finally did! I followed a Mary Berry recipe which I followed for the cake but I bought the icing in a tub as it was faster and meant less washing up!

Ingredients:

3 large eggs

175g self-raising flour

175g caster sugar

175g softened butter

1½ level tsp baking powder

40g cocoa powder

4 tbsp boiling water

ANY EXTRAS TO DECORATE

I preheated the oven to 180 degrees and put all the ingredients (but the cocoa and water) into a large mixing bowl and used an electric whisk to whizz them all together! Next, in a separate bowl I stirred the cocoa and the water to make a thick paste which I then added to my mixture. 

Once all stirred and mixed together I put the mixture in two round cake tins making sure they were both even and level, before putting them in the oven for 20 minutes.

Once cooled I cut off any peaks I had so that the cakes would sit nicely on each other and spread my icing over the top of the cake with the back of a spoon. I then used some mini eggs, white chocolate buttons and revels to decorate as well as an iced flower!

 We made this for my boyfriend's parents as an Easter surprise, here it is with our Easter 'card'!

Abi :)

RECIPE: Pizza From Scratch!

The other night my boyfriend and I decided to make pizzas from scratch! We'd already done the whole buy-the-base-and-add-your-toppings thing, so this time we wanted to do it all buy ourselves! 

We used a Jamie Oliver recipe for the dough which you can find HERE (we didn't follow this recipe exactly though) and added our own toppings. 

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees

You will need:

1kg strong bread flour

2 x 7g sachets of yeast

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp salt

650ml lukewarm water

tomato puree

cheese (any kind you like!)

Firstly, clean a surface and sieve the flour and salt onto it and form a well. Then, stir the yeast, sugar and water into a glass bowl and leave for a few minutes. Thirdly, add the liquid to the middle of the well bit by bit and add the flour into the well, do this until all the flour and solution is mixed and is looking like a dough (you may also want to flour your surface if it gets too sticky). Then leave for about half an hour in a bowl with cling film covering it. 

Once you've left it, sprinkle some flour onto a surface and start rolling your dough out to about 1cm thick depending on how you like it! Next comes the fun part: DECORATING YOUR PIZZA!!! I squeezed some tomato puree all over my dough and spread it out with the back of a spoon, then I added some ready-grated mozzarella, Gloucester cheese and cheddar cheese with some black olives (I love olives) and added some bacon bits and pepperoni too!

Put it into the oven for around ten minutes but keep checking it!

Here's my final result!

Abi :)

BLOGMAS: DAY 10 - Food and Recipes

I tend to eat more food than I make no matter what time of the year but here's a few things that we make in my household!

Gingerbread House I'll link the recipe post I did HERE

Chocolate Mice, literally melting chocolate and pouring it into moulds!

Sausage rolls - rolling sausages in ready made pastry with herbs and cheese!

Abi :)

Two Ways to Make a Gingerbread House!

It's the run up to Christmas which can mean: Christmas shopping, writing cards, finding an advent calendar and doing some festive baking! I have only ever made two gingerbread houses but I made them differently each time, here they are:

The first way is a bit of a cheats/beginners way (it was my first ever one) where you buy a kit which has all the bits made for you - although this was more of a gingerbread cake than a biscuit - and you glue the pieces together with royal icing which is either provided or you can easily make it HERE's a recipe for it. And for anyone interested, HERE's a link to the kit I got as an early Christmas present one year.

The second way is doing everything BY HAND. I did this last year and I'll warn you in advance IT DID TRY MY PATIENCE so just keep at it and you will get there in the end. For this you will need: gingerbread house cutters HERE's some and a recipe for gingerbread like THIS one. The main ingredients for the gingerbread are: 250g unsalted butter, 200g dark muscovado sugar, 7tbsp golden syrup, 600g plain flour, 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda and 4tsp ground ginger.Once you've melted the butter, sugar and syrup together mix the other ingredients in to make the dough, then roll out and use the cutters to cut your required shapes and bake for about 12 minutes on a preheated oven at about 200C. Once cool, make some royal icing (icing sugar and egg whites) to glue the pieces together to make the house and also to add any decorations on like chocolate buttons, fruit pastilles or smarties.

Hope you enjoyed this festive post!

Abi :)

Recipe: Blackberry Jelly

As I've previously said my parents have an allotment each and so we get a tonne of produce every year (yayyy!). As it's Autumn we've had hundred of Blackberries and as nice as they are to eat on their own we thought we'd make some Blackberry Jelly!

We'd accumulated 4lbs of blackberries, which were washed and drained and put into a big pan over a medium/high heat and add some lemon juice (a whole squeezed lemon or about 2 tbsp of lemon juice) and 1/2 pint water until all the berries had turned to a liquid.

 We then strained the liquid  using a plastic jelly bag, as you can see we made do with what we had so it's not the prettiest sight!

Then we sterilised some jars for the jelly to go into whilst the juice was still straining. Then, for every pint of juice use 1lb of sugar - we had just under 1 pint! Add the correct amount of sugar to the juice and stir over a low heat until all the sugar dissolves. Then simmer for about an hour

 Finally, put the jelly CAREFULLY into jars, it helps if the jars are a bit warm as it creates a seal (so that when you open the lid it makes a popping noise) so the jelly won't go off or anything!

Abi :)